Interactive information systems allow an information provider to broadcast information to a user, and in some cases allow a user to send a response to a response collector. The user may receive the information on a wide variety of devices, such as a pager, cellular telephone, personal digital assistant or a television. An interactive information system on which the user receives the information using a television is called an interactive television system.
An interactive television system can enhance the television viewing experience. An interactive television system allows an information provider to broadcast information to users for viewing on their television systems, and defines how the user is allowed to control the time, order, type of information displayed, or other aspects. An interactive television system may allow the user to send to a response collector responses to the information received, or new information.
Some interactive television systems provide a textual user interface, displaying formatted textual information to the user. However unlike graphical interactive information systems, text-based systems do not allow the information provider to control and present a wide variety of graphical information and formatting that are commonly used with graphical user interfaces. A graphical interactive information system uses a graphical user interface to display a variety of graphical information and allows the user to control the operation of the system based upon the graphical display. Text-based systems are more difficult to use and limit the appeal of the interactive television system in much the same way that text-based computer operating systems limited the appeal of computer systems prior to the introduction of graphical user interfaces.
One such attempt (Lappington, U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,239) inserts textual data in a binary format into unused lines in the Vertical Blanking Interval, or VBI, of the conventional television transmission for decoding by a set-top device and transmission to, and display on, a handheld remote control device. The VBI is a portion of the television picture which is broadcast, but not typically seen by the television viewer, and readily allows for insertion of data, such as closed captioning text. However, the limited data capacity of the VBI has thus far prevented the use of graphical user interfaces, because the VBI does not have the data capacity required to send the large amount of data to date required for a graphical user interface. For example, Lappington does not disclose a graphical user interface.
One interactive television system (Fascenda et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,546) does not use the VBI at all, instead sending information to the user via an FM subcarrier channel. Such a system has the drawback of requiring a large initial user investment in equipment required to receive the information. Additionally, Fascenda does not suggest the transmission of graphical user interface information.
To circumvent the limited capacity of the available data transport mechanisms, a functionally-limited graphical-like interactive television system has been developed (Young, U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,121). Young suggests a system which allows an information provider to send a sequence of text over the VBI to a set of predefined overlays. The result appears to be a more graphical display than Lappington, because boxes surround each section of the text. Although Young does not disclose how the size of the box is determined, which party controls the size of the box, or how the box is displayed on the screen, nevertheless, the mere control of the width of a box surrounding text, without more, is not a graphical user interface of the type set forth in the illustrated embodiments of the present invention. In addition, Young does not allow the information provider to design new overlays, and thus is limited to the overlays which have been predefined. This restriction limits the type and format of the data which can be displayed to data fitting into one of the predefined overlays existing in the user-device used to render the display.
None of these devices allows an information provider to broadcast a true graphical user interface to an interactive information system. Nor do these devices solve the additional problems inherent in the reception and display of a graphical user interface.
One inherent problem is the reluctance of many users to significantly invest in separate reception or display equipment required to display and operate a graphical interactive information system. For example, many potential users of a graphical interactive television system will not pay the cost of receiving the graphical interactive information over an FM channel because of the cost of the additional tuner equipment required by such an approach. Conventional set top cable television decoder boxes can provide a desirable reception platform for interactive television systems because they are relatively cheap, contain much of the necessary interface and reception equipment, and are accepted in most homes. However, the use of such devices would be acceptable if only inexpensive, compact modifications were required to display and operate a graphical interactive information system.
Another problem is the lack of standards among reception and display equipment vendors. For example, conventional set-top cable decoder boxes might be used as a platform as described above. However, a variety of set-top equipment exists yielding a variety of capabilities. Each vendor promotes a system that will use the vendor's equipment capabilities to the fullest extent possible. Vendors typically would not accept a system which was designed only for the most basic equipment, nor would they likely accept a system which only operated with the most feature-rich equipment.
Another problem is the requirement for interactive television systems that such a system work rapidly enough to operate in conjunction with existing broadcast television shows. For example, graphical interactive television system applications which operate in conjunction with existing television game show programs must be transmitted to display the graphical user interface quickly. Furthermore, there must be a mechanism to make modifications to the user interface quickly, to allow large amounts of information to be updated rapidly.